PHP: Included function versus call to a static function. Is one better than the other?

Question

I have a message class that I use like so:

RedirectMsg::go('somepage.php', MessageType::ERROR, 'Your message here.');

Would it be better to use a regular function? Or is this a personal preference issue?

redirectMsg('somepage.php', MessageType::ERROR, 'Your message here.');

Answer 1

This is generally a personal preference thing. It also depends on the scope of your application. You can afford to "organize" less in a smaller app and just save yourself the typing.

Answer 2

Objects Classes help provide a sudo pseudo-namespace for functions so that they don't overlap, which can be very helpful. Have a large number of functions in the global namespace is a naming disaster waiting to happen. If you're using PHP 5.3 you might want to look into namespaces.